It was a joyous household the next morning, and Mr. Hartagous genially
participated in the prevailing good cheer. He had very heartily
deprecated the hardships to be wrought by the execution of his duty, and
was thankful indeed that they were mitigated to the extent of the
benefactions of this codicil. Great Oaks under water, with valuable
machinery and livestock, miles of fencing and indispensable buildings,
to replace, was no boon in comparison with Mrs. Faurie’s former rich
endowments, but at all events it was not to fall to his lot to turn the
widow out of her shelter for the behoof of her young sons. Nevertheless,
he resolved to remonstrate very seriously with her against the proposed
marriage, and to stint himself no whit in forceful phraseology.
He did not meet her at the breakfast-table, for he was late, owing to
the vigils of the preceding night, and when he presented himself to
partake of the matutinal meal, he found that she had already departed,
leaving him to the vicarious hospitality of Desmond, the jubilant Mr.
Stanlett, and the three boys with their shining morning faces. He
fortified himself with a good cigar after breakfast and a meditative
stroll upon the veranda in the fresh, breezy, summery day, intending
that his nerves should be well soothed and his tact whetted before he
should enter upon his delicate mission.
The leafage of the wide-spreading grove was green and lush, and waved
gilded in the sunlight; hanging baskets, with trailing ferns and laden
with parti-colored foliage plants, swung in the arches between the
vine-draped columns of the veranda. If one could imagine one’s self
afloat, or in some Venetian entourage, the diluvian scene might have
seemed, instead of the dreariest expression of disaster, to have
elements of picturesque amphibious interest. What though the Arkansas
shore were withdrawn from view—there was not much of it visible in its
best estate!—and instead was an expanse of rippling sunlit sea of
indefinite bounds, of a richly tawny hue, and with enlivening and unique
incidents,—a couple of gayly whisking dugouts in the foreground, a
steamboat in the middle distance, puffing columns of curling smoke as in
the centre of the channel she steadily climbed the current, and in the
offing a white flash of sea-gulls, describing eccentric curves,
brilliant as stars against the depressed horizon, blue and hazy and
dimly discriminated. There was an absence of briny odors, which are not
always acceptable, however, and instead a pungent fragrance of bark came
from the inundated woods, and the honeysuckle twining about the
balustrade and bravely blooming from out the floods sent forth a subtile
and delicious perfume.
“‘A life on the ocean wave,’” Mrs. Faurie exclaimed joyously, as he
turned a corner and came suddenly upon her. She had been rifling a wire
flower-stand that lifted its redundant growths against the wall of the
house, and she held in her hand a cluster of pink and white carnations.
As she stood in the blended sheen of the bland day and the refulgent
reflection of the blazing waters, she looked not unlike the bloom
itself. She had upon her head a wide hat of delicate pink organdy, the
brim variously bent and shirred and frilled, and her morning dress was
of sheer white lawn. He strove within himself to avoid its recognition
as the simplest toilet, such as any country girl might wear, for she
took no grace from it, but embellished its every suggestion. Her slim,
lissome figure lent it such distinction; the exquisite fairness of her
complexion was so emphasized by the unrelenting clarity of the tints of
her costume; the shoaling lights and shadows of her beautiful gray eyes,
her rich brown hair piled high amongst the carnation-like frills of the
hat, her delicate dewy lips, her dainty hand and arm and throat, all
were more assertive in their demand for homage in the simple not to say
stereotyped attire. And she looked scarcely twenty years old, as her
laughing, long-lashed eyes met his.
“Can you keep your sea-legs in the contemplation of that weltering
main?”—she glanced at the waterscape. “Will you feel less as if in an
indigestible dream and more like a landlubber if I give you a
boutonnière?” She selected a very perfect carnation from the cluster,
and as she advanced to place it in the buttonhole of his coat, he caught
her hand with the flower in it.
“I want to say something very serious to you,” he protested. “I want to
speak as freely to you as if you were my daughter.”
She glanced up, gayly laughing. “Your sister, you should say.”
He perceived his error,—on the very point of age, which was to be the
gravamen of his remonstrances! But he had unconsciously been allured by
her aspect,—as she looked scarcely twenty.
“Well, hardly young enough to be my daughter, indeed,” he said craftily,
“though Desmond is really young enough to be my son. My dear madam, you
will make yourself a laughing-stock if you contemplate this marriage.
You ought to remember that you are ten years older than this boy.”
“Should I mind that if he does not?” she queried, holding up the cluster
of carnations no fresher than the flush in her cheeks.
“And now that, by the grace of God, you are to have Great Oaks
unincumbered, you will put him into the position of making a mercenary
marriage; he is sensitive on that score,—I can see that already,—though
of course he is glad that your future comfort is assured, however
meagrely in comparison with the old days.”
“But ought we to consider the public,—if it will accord us so much
distinction as to gossip about us as a nine days’ wonder,—or only
ourselves, and our own mutual happiness?” She slipped the carnation into
his buttonhole and drew off, standing in her graceful slimness, her head
aslant, to observe the effect.
“Ridicule deals a vicarious stab, which is peculiarly sharp. You should
consider your children, dear Mrs. Faurie,” he urged.
“And I will,” she promised heartily. “Trust me for that! I will do
nothing contrary to their wishes.”
He made no secret of his intentions. He turned at once. She stood
looking after him, smiling at his haste, as he went bustling down the
veranda to find the boys. His method of busy progression was not unlike
that of the puffing steamboat in the channel, bustling up the river.
Though he had no fear of her interference or adverse influence, he was
so impressed with the importance of his mission to enlist some potent
opposition to the marriage that he made no effort to enliven the
seriousness of the crisis with jocose preamble, in view of the juvenile
character of his interlocutors, or to minimize its significance. In
logical and definite fashion he set forth the fact and its aspect to the
world at large, with its effect on their mother’s future and their own,
in very unvarnished phrase. They silently heard him out, seated before
him in a row on the sofa in the front parlor, very attentive, and with
more friendly faces than he had heretofore seen them wear.
“It rests with you three,” he said in conclusion, seeking to impress
them with a sense of their responsibility. “Your mother cares more for
you than she ever did or ever will for any man. She is the most maternal
woman I ever knew. You can prevent her from making a ridiculous
marriage,—a foolish marriage,—a disastrous marriage, that will bring
unhappiness upon everybody connected with it.”
“Oh, no! Mr. Hartagous!” promptly responded the rosy and beaming Chub,
taking the pas, perhaps instinctively on the principle that the youngest
officer on a court-martial speaks first. “It is the very best thing that
we can do. Ever since I have found out that Mr. Desmond was going to
marry us, I have felt that we-all were so safe!” He gave himself an
affectionate little hug to express his sense of security.
Horace administered a rude nudge with his elbow. “Nobody is going to
marry _you_!” he admonished his junior, shamefaced for the ignorance he
manifested.
“Oh, yes,” protested Chub, wagging his round head, evidently having
mastered the situation; “when a gentleman marries a widow lady, he
marries the whole family!”
“You certainly have an interest to consider,” said Mr. Hartagous,
gravely. “Your affection for your mother, your respect for your father,
ought to urge you to a course of discreet remonstrance,—nothing
unfilial, or likely to estrange you, but to prevent an absurd and most
unseemly marriage that must necessarily be, too, unhappy and
unfortunate.”
“I don’t see it in that light, Mr. Hartagous,” said Horace, slowly. His
face had an intimation of precocious force, and there was even a
mutinous spark in the glance of his eye. His was the complex and
difficult disposition of the three brothers. His convictions were
obviously strong, and his opposition likely to be of a strenuous order.
Mr. Hartagous hearkened with an access of attention. “I don’t see it
that way. I think that Mr. Desmond cares more for her and for us than
anybody else ever will. I think his proposal when he had reason to think
her fairly bankrupt shows that he was willing to make every sacrifice
for her. Then look at him! Why, you are obliged to see that he is head
and shoulders above anybody—though he is not rich. But he is younger,
just as you say, though he does not _seem_ young. He is old in mind and
disposition. And Lord! the heaps he knows about everything! As to your
fear about what people will say,—well, _I_ have seen a lot of the world,
and it seems to me that if a certain kind of people don’t laugh at you
for one thing, they will for another. If you stay at home, they call you
‘a swamper’; if you travel abroad, they call you a ‘globe-trotter’; if
you dress well, they ridicule you as ‘a dude’; if you take it easy, they
say you are ‘tacky.’ _My_ idea is to go right ahead and do what you
think is right and properest, and—let them laugh! I’d hate to deny
myself anything good and valuable ’cause Mrs. Kentopp might giggle over
it.”
“She left us out of her house-party,—and we ain’t dead yet!” said Chub,
banging the heels of his shoes back and forth against the sofa.
Reginald took a deeper view. “I think, sir, that her happiness ought to
be considered first. She is young, after all is said, and has many years
yet to live, I hope. She ought to have her independence,—to be a free
agent! When I was in India, there had been a recent case of suttee way
off somewhere in some remote district,—I heard a great deal of talk
about it. People had supposed the practice was suppressed. And without
meaning any disrespect to my father’s will,—for I can understand how the
idea of a stranger in the family circle would influence a division of
property,—I always thought an objection to second marriage was a sort of
civilized suttee. As to Mr. Desmond, himself, I should prefer him as a
stepfather to all the world.”
And thus Desmond was welcomed without a dissentient voice.
At first Mrs. Kentopp, who might be taken as representing the gossips at
large, was so rejoiced that Great Oaks Plantation would not come
immediately on the market in competition with Dryad-Dene that it
mitigated the acerbity of her views, and although she twinkled and
dimpled much in commenting on the disparity in age and fortune and
prospects of the couple, her talk had not the rancor which it developed
later when Mr. Loring seemed indisposed to console himself with
Dryad-Dene, and gradually drew off without making any offer.
A golden era of happiness had dawned on Great Oaks; the waters of the
overflow gradually disappeared, and during the brief interval of the
wedding journey Mrs. Kentopp drove over through the mud, bogging down
once or twice in the alluvial sloughs, on a tour of discovery, and
recounted with facetious distortions of effect afterward Chub’s simple
boastings in great pride as to the preparations that were making for the
reception of the couple on their return. Mr. Stanlett had designed and
supervised these, and was very important and happily busy. “I hope he
furnished the money to pay for the changes, for otherwise I don’t see
where it was to come from, for Desmond must have put all his pedagogic
savings in the expense of the bridal tour,” she jovially speculated.
Great Oaks was very judiciously embellished, and looked most genially
hospitable on the day of her visit, for the old man had a pretty fancy
and an accurate discrimination of the appropriate.
“I always said there was another will or codicil, or, to be accurate,
‘paper-writing,’” he cheerily averred, as he handed Mrs. Kentopp into
her carriage. “This is not of course the provision that was intended for
Honoria, but it passes,—it passes fairly well, and Edward, my nephew,
Mr. Desmond, you know, does not care for money.”
And when Mrs. Kentopp repeated this, she was wont to point out gayly the
incongruity of this statement with the fact that “Edward,” Mr.
Stanlett’s “nephew,” should have contrived to surround himself
comfortably with that useful commodity in a wife so well endowed and
three very rich stepsons, over whom he had now paramount influence. She
found much joy, also, in Horace’s simplicity in believing that the
sentimental interests between the two had been settled before the
discovery of the last codicil which had put a new aspect on the
financial status, and she sought to convince people in Deepwater Bend
and elsewhere that the comfortable estate, more than the phenomenal
beauty of the lady, had served to obviate the disadvantage of the
disparity of years.
Prosperity supplemented happiness. There was a great crop of cotton
produced by the overflowed lands; the debts were finally settled; the
yacht was gone, indeed, when all was done, but the emeralds remained,
and the next carnival season the famous beauty blazed in all her wonted
splendor upon the old coterie in New Orleans which she had frequented in
her girlhood. But she soon became secondary in the household. Colonel
Desmond,—how Mrs. Kentopp laughed when that brevet of consideration was
added to him instinctively, insensibly by the community, addicted to the
bestowal of titles on those who so manifestly were entitled to the
insignia of supremacy,—in the serene quiet of the ensuing winter, found
in the desk of the library the scattered sheets of a manuscript which he
had written in his lonely leisure in the early days of his stay at Great
Oaks. He re-read it in surprise, and withal in self-conscious doubt,
then again with growing appreciation. He thought that he could not now
write its like. It had the concentrated strength of complete mental
isolation. It was the work of the seer,—one who stands apart and judges
justly without flinching, and it was instinct with the abstract truth.
Much of it was bitter like life, much of it was sad; but it apprehended
an unrealized purpose, a symmetry of design in life, a divine direction,
and it shadowed this forth. So unfamiliar had the work grown in the
lapse of time that he was flattered by the tone of its scholarship, its
evidences of close reasoning, deep learning, and wide scope of thought,
and the distinction of its literary style. For this reason he showed it
to his wife and the eldest of the stepsons, and straightway the
household clamor arose. Greatness unsolicited had knocked at their
doors! Fame had been busy all this time gathering laurels for their
brows. The younger sons, although uncomprehending, were equally elated,
and though Desmond laughed at them all, he let them have their will, and
he became grave and respectful toward their acumen when he read the
letter of the publisher to whom it was submitted.
Mrs. Kentopp said later that its vogue—an absolutely unreadable book, on
all sorts of political conditions, for nobody had really read it—was
because a notable English statesman, very meddlesome with pen and ink,
had canvassed its positions in a London quarterly, duller, if possible,
and less read than the book itself, and another English quarterly had
published Desmond’s reply, and for some time the counter-arguments of
other political economists who found the work of vital interest caused
the effusion of much printers’ ink. And when the family went to London
the next year, Colonel Desmond was lionized in distinguished circles,
and was given an additional learned degree at a great English university
where he had taken one in his earlier youth.
“Deepwater Bend is a literary centre now, and don’t you forget it, and
has its learned light,” Mrs. Kentopp dimpled, “though none of us of
course have read or ever will read the Great Book.”
But even Mrs. Kentopp’s flings were destined to disregard and
discontinuance. A javelin, however skillfully aimed, must needs have a
point to take effect. “I don’t think there seems a disparity in age,” a
stranger in a social company had dubiously replied to her delighted
mention of the ten years’ difference. “Colonel Desmond does not look so
much as ten years older.”
And after the company’s somewhat mischievous burst of laughter had shown
their comprehension of her intention and hopelessly mystified the
stranger, who could not imagine what had been said amiss, Colonel
Kentopp had taken occasion to admonish his wife in private. “You do
yourself no good, Annetta, by harping on that woman’s age. People will
only think you carping and jealous.”
And, indeed, Desmond was fast growing older and graver. Other books had
succeeded the first; and while they added distinction in differing
degrees, they added, too, the marks of thought on brow and mien. Now the
light always burned late from the library window on the water-side, and
the river pilots counted its faint, far glow in their midnight bearings.
Often they pointed it out with pride to some passenger admitted to the
wheel-house, seeing it shining with a sort of stellular isolation amidst
the darkling riparian forests of Great Oaks, and repeated the titles of
his volumes, although perhaps, like Mrs. Kentopp, they had read none of
the works.
But this was really not the illuminated hour of the library, the time of
its signal triumph. Regularly every afternoon when the western sunlight,
striking in long, slanting bars athwart it, turned from burnished gold
to ethereal, hazy red, his wife appeared, and seated one on each side of
the fire in true Darby-and-Joan fashion, as Kentopp’s prophetic eye had
long ago beheld them from the veranda, Desmond read aloud the result of
his day’s labor, while her beautiful, listening, reflective eyes dwelt
on the coals and his voice filled the quiet spaces of the scholastic old
room. She never criticised. She gave no word of applause. She offered no
monition of advice. When he laid down the papers and their eyes met, her
comment was always the same.
“What did I tell you long, long ago, the first afternoon that you and I
ever sat here before the fire?”
“Why, that I ought to write for publication,—to write books.”
“And what did you say?”
“Well,” he always laughed as he replied,—“that I couldn’t,—that I was
not capable of it.”
“Then,” she was wont to solemnly rejoin, while her eyes danced with joy
and mirth and pride, “do you never _dare_ to contradict me again as long
as you live.”
=The Riverside Press=
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
BOOKS BY
“=Charles Egbert Craddock=”
(MARY N. MURFREE)
_NOVELS AND STORIES_
THE FAIR MISSISSIPPIAN. With frontispiece. Square crown 8vo, $1.50.
THE FRONTIERSMEN. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
A SPECTRE OF POWER. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
IN THE TENNESSEE MOUNTAINS. 16mo, $1.25.
THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS. 16mo, $1.25.
IN THE CLOUDS. 16mo, $1.25.
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 16mo, $1.25.
WHERE THE BATTLE WAS FOUGHT. 16mo, $1.25.
HIS VANISHED STAR. 16mo, $1.25.
THE MYSTERY OF WITCH-FACE MOUNTAIN. 16mo, $1.25.
THE JUGGLER. 16mo, $1.25.
_JUVENILES_
THE CHAMPION. With a Frontispiece. 12mo, $1.20 _net_. Postpaid, $1.30.
THE YOUNG MOUNTAINEERS. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.
THE STORY OF KEEDON BLUFFS. 16mo, $1.00.
DOWN THE RAVINE. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.00.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MONTLIVET
By ALICE PRESCOTT SMITH
“The best American historical novel by a woman since ‘To Have and To
Hold.’”
_New York World._
“In dramatic force and in power and reality of dialogue this story is
one of the best of the year.”
_San Francisco Chronicle._
“The reader thrills under the spell of a well-sustained and adventurous
tale.”
_Detroit Free Press._
“The story of ‘Montlivet’ is as simple as it is absorbingly
interesting—it is of a quality to rise above fads and fashions by virtue
of its own power.”
_Chicago Journal._
With frontispiece in colors, $1.50.
THE EVASION
By EUGENIA BROOKS FROTHINGHAM
Author of “The Turn of the Road.”
“The latest human products of a Puritan heritage and a Boston
environment are portrayed in this novel with much the same sort of
artistic realism that Mrs. Humphry Ward uses in her chosen field of
London and English life.”—_Boston Globe._
“This novel has distinction, social, artistic and moral.... Its social
distinction is truly typical of Boston society.... Well-planned and
constructed, it is yet never heavy.... The moral atmosphere of the book
is clear and bracing.”—_New York Mail._
“_The Evasion_ reflects Boston as accurately as New York was mirrored in
‘The House of Mirth.’”—_Chicago Evening Post._
“A fine story, showing vivid ability and power. Every page is
absorbing.”—_Chicago Record-Herald._
12mo, $1.50.
NOVELS BY MRS. M. E. M. DAVIS
THE LITTLE CHEVALIER>
A stirring and dramatic tale, full of color and movement, of the gay and
adventurous life in New Orleans in the early part of the 18th
century.... A most delightful and entertaining book.—_New Orleans
Picayune._ Illustrated by H. J. PECK. 12mo, $1.50.
THE QUEEN’S GARDEN>
It is a charming and most artistic piece of fiction ... a delightful
little romance, altogether as interesting as anything Mr. Cable has ever
written.—_Nashville Banner._ 16mo, $1.25.
UNDER THE MAN-FIG>
Mrs. Davis writes of Texas, of plantation life and character, of the
ever-fascinating negroes and the gentle, lazy white children of Sunshine
land, their pretty romance, and their patient suffering. Her story
covers a number of years in time, and includes a wide and varied range
of characters. It is full of romance and mystery, with an interest
steadily cumulating to the close.—_Chicago Interior._ 16mo, $1.25.
THE WIRE CUTTERS>
The principal scenes of the novel are laid in Louisiana and Texas, and
it takes its name from the desperate and prolonged struggle waged with
indomitable energy and pluck by the rural classes of the latter state
against what they deemed the outrageous and unwarranted fencing in of
their broad acres, once as free as the very air. There is a love story
in which the interest never flags.—_New Orleans States._
Crown 8vo, $1.50.
THE PRICE OF SILENCE>
A romance of modern New Orleans, with a lively movement and a charming
setting. Illustrated by GRISWOLD TYNG. 12mo, $1.50.
BOOKS BY ANDY ADAMS
“Mr. Adams’s books are a unique contribution to the history of the
country.” _Boston Transcript._
REED ANTHONY, COWMAN>
The autobiography of a cowboy, giving an interesting insight into the
old-time cattle business.
THE LOG OF A COWBOY>
“Breezy, natural, entertaining and racy of the soil.” _Chicago
Record-Herald._
Illustrated by E. BOYD SMITH.
A TEXAS MATCHMAKER>
“A rattling good story, full of fun and the spirit of out-of-doors.”
_San Francisco Argonaut._
Illustrated by E. BOYD SMITH.
THE OUTLET>
“A splendid description of a cattle-drive, vivid and well written.” _New
York Life._
Illustrated by E. BOYD SMITH.
CATTLE BRANDS>
“Clever, original and highly amusing tales.” _Boston Transcript._
Each of the above, $1.50.
HOUGHTON
MIFFLIN
COMPANY
[Illustration: TOUT BIEN OU RIEN]
BOSTON
AND
NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
● Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.